Great response to Lord McAlpine suing on Twitter

Well short of losing an immediate member of your family or being terminally ill yourself (for which everyone gives you sympathy and understanding) I am struggling to think of very many things that are as bad as being wrongly, and very publicly, accused of being a pedophile.

Well - he hasn't said he intends to do so, Dueling - and given that he has been very upfront about his intended actions so far, I imagine he would have done.

I get the impression that, whilst he is horrified to have been incorrectly identified, his ire is directed at those who tweeted and retweeted the accusation. Maybe he sees that the identification by the man concerned, and the police force's acceptance of that identification were genuine errors, and that the police were right to believe the man concerned (in line with the We Believe You campaign philosophy).

The police acted on the information that they had available to them, and presumeably changed their actions once the information changed. That, to me, would show that it was a genuine error - though I don't know if they have apologised, without prejudice, to Lord McAlpine for the upset caused - which is what I would think was reasonable for them to do.

"I didn't see the Newsnight programme in question, but as I understand it Lord McAlpine wasn't actually named in the programme - they only said "a very senior Tory" or something similar"

People have told me it was implied. Not sure how.

It's odd. The BBC pull a programme naming Jimmy Saville as a sex offender and everyone gets their knickers in a big twist about why they didn't show it.

Newsnight make a programme where they don't name a suspected sex offender and everyone get's their knickers in a big twist about why they showed it.

I DO think McAlpine's politics are relevant, though I sympathise with him, because it's clear that there is a very political campaign against the BBC and has been for several years. Is McAlpine a part of that? I don't know. It's all very interesting though.

I didn't know police information couldn't be libelous, it can be incorrect and ruin lives though.

He worded that 'worst thing" sentence badly. If he had said that being accused of child abuse was the "worst accusation" that could have happened it would have been much better and entirely understandable.

However, if someone is libelled so badly I think it is perfectly OK for them to take action. And it would be great if he does then donate any compensation to appropriate charities.

I am glad, TBH, that that chattering idiots on Twitter who have no conception of/don't care about innocent until proven guilty and pass on rumour and gossip as fact should have to answer for what they said. I wonder how they would feel about being accused of child abuse? All they have done with their infantile tweetings is move the focus away from the real issue - child abuse and caused more pain for the victims, particularly Stephen Measham.

Really? You really think Lord McAlpine did this on purpose, mignonette?

On a purely practical level, this sort of mud (paedophilia accusations) is the sort that sticks the most, when thrown, so using this as a way to discredit another person or people could backfire most hideously on the person using this 'ploy'. It would make no sense to use false accusations of paedophilia in this way - anyone sufficiently machiavellian to do this would surely also be sufficiently cunning to pick less inflammatory accusation - environmental damage by one's company, improper financial dealings, sexual impropriety with another adult or adults.

"DuelingFanjo - when you say that Lord McAlpine's politics are 'relevant', you don't mean that it is more acceptable wrongly to accuse a Tory of child abuse than a supporter of another political party?"